Gas turbine engines are used to power aircraft, watercraft, power generators, pumps and the like. Gas turbine engines typically include a compressor, a combustor, and a turbine. The compressor compresses air drawn into the engine and delivers high pressure air to the combustor. The combustor is typically an assembly that receives the high pressure air from the compressor and adds fuel to the air which is burned to produce hot, high-pressure gas. After burning the fuel, the hot, high-pressure gas is passed from the combustor to the turbine. The turbine extracts work from the hot, high-pressure gas to drive the compressor and residual energy is used for propulsion or to drive an output shaft.
Certain combustor assemblies used in turbine engines include a series of cans arranged around an axis of engine rotation and interconnected by crossover tubes that form passageways between the cans. Each can defines a combustion chamber in which a fuel-air mixture is burned. Burning fuel-air mixture passes through the passageways formed by the crossover tubes to ignite the fuel-air mixture in the adjacent cans.